19 / 04 / 2013

Link Building in 2013

Author

Simon Owen

Category

Blogs

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Over the last 12 months, SEO (search engine optimisation) has changed and evolved at an amazing pace. Some of the techniques that were once at the forefront of a successful SEO campaign were pushed by the wayside with Google’s “Penguin” update in April 2012.

One of the questions we get asked a lot is about search engine optimisation. The topic itself is not too difficult to understand but I think a lot of companies don’t understand how a website is indexed in Google, so they then find it difficult to understand how changes can make a difference.

Link Building

One of the techniques that does still make a difference to SEO is Link Building, but this has also changed. Gone are the days when you can buy links or send out press releases to hundreds of directory or article listing sites to gain back-links to your content. Google is a lot more savvy than that now; you need to make sure that quality over powers quantity. If you have previously prioritised low quality back links to your website you will most likely find that you have now been penalised and your website will have dropped dramatically in the rankings. The key is to build quality relevant links.

It is not always easy to get high quality links to your website especially from relevant websites, but take your time and build relationships to allow for the link to happen. Consider it your online networking! You will find that building the links will take a lot longer than you had ever imagined but the results will be worth it. If you don’t have a good database of contacts to work with, then use social media such as Twitter, Facebook and even LinkedIn to help you build your contacts.

Doesn't Cut The Mustard

When communicating with other site owners or bloggers don’t just email them with a template based email asking for a link back to your website, this will just not cut the mustard. You need to take time to understand who they are, what they do and engage with them. Take your time getting to know them before asking them for a link back. Try to show that you have done some research and you have selected them for a reason.

So you have made friends with an owner of a site or a blogger that is relevant to your business. What do you do now? Google doesn’t want to see plain links back to your site. Just like the quality of the link, it also wants to see those links set within relevant, engaging content.

These links are much harder to get and often involve writing specific articles or blogs around a related topic to your website. It is very important to create unique content as you will get penalised if you just copy and paste an article from the web and then add to your website and pass off as your own. Google wants to see how good you are within your chosen topic.

The Thumbs Up

If you are producing unique content then Google gives the thumbs up to say you know what you are talking about within your industry. It also might be a good idea to link your article with a Google + account as this can’t do any harm when trying to help them decide where to rank your article! When writing the content, make sure that it informs and educates. The internet is full of low quality content. If you are looking for a link off a high page rank website, then make sure that your content will at least add value to it.

We have focused on this article about building links via blogs and excellent content writing but remember there are a number of ways you can get links to your website. They also have to be relevant but offer other chances to get links from different types of website:

  • Forum posts
  • Blogs
  • Blog comments
  • Keyword rich text

How do you determine which website you should get a link to?

Well, first of all you need to make sure that the website you want to link to be relevant for your business. Once you know it is relevant, then check it out before you do the research and get to know the site owner. The most important factor is, as Matt Cutts from Google explains in the “How Search Works” seen below, is Page Rank (developed by Google founder Larry Page).

This is the score that Google rates a web pages importance due to the amount of links it receives and how important they are.

We have listed below the list of factors to take into account when determining if a website is worth linking to:

  • Page rank
  • Domain authority
  • Page authority
  • Moz rank
  • Moz trust

It is a good strategy to plan your link building campaign around realistic targets. If you have a new website and you try and spend time getting a link from a page rank 9 site such as BBC then you are dreaming. Set your strategy and build from it. But don’t fall down the trap of going for quantity over quality. You will know when you are hitting the right note when people start linking to your articles without being prompted.

We would suggest that you look for links from website and web pages that have slightly higher scores than your website. As we discussed earlier don’t push the boat out too much and work hard to get links from high ranking website as your time will be better spent working on more realistic links. But also don’t spurn the chance if you get it if you can!!

The team at Google have put together a great website to explain all about what they do with your website and how they index each of the pages. Take a look for yourself and let us know what you think